Bleak but intriguing, Company is a brilliant reflection of the mind-set that dominated world politics for a half century. Solid performances are the rule, with special applause for Molina and Keaton. Director Mikael Salomon effectively uses darkness and shadows to illustrate the clandestine environment as well as metaphors for this grim historical era.

This darkly engrossing and quietly suspenseful six-hour miniseries packages its chilly, cynical overview of international Cold War espionage in a brisk parade of sumptuously produced historical set pieces.

This spy drama is not as dense and psychologically intricate, but it has compensations, most notably the placement of fictional characters like McAuliffe and Torriti alongside real-life figures like Angleton and Philby, and inside real-life crises like the 1956 Hungarian uprising.

Thanks to sleek production values, a generally top-notch cast and an absorbing overall story that smartly mixes explosive action with quieter moments of sinister intrigue, The Company delivers a refreshingly solid jolt of summertime Big Event drama.

It’s at its best when it sweats the small stuff of things like "barium meals" (purposefully fake directives designed to smoke out double agents) and the moves and countermoves of smart men trying to outwit each other.

So much of it is striking, particularly the work of two of the leads, Alfred Molina (The Da Vinci Code, Frida) and Michael Keaton (Batman, Live From Baghdad), who play CIA men with antithetical spy styles.